Giant mirror replaces tabernacle: Catholic meditation room in India promotes 'God within'

[Scottgun]

After many years of warning people (appropriately) against worshipping the mirror, here is a literal example at Off the Record:

A Catholic priest in India, the founder of the Universal Solidarity Movement, has devised a new form of prayer: in a small room dominated by a large mirror. The faithful are asked to spend an hour gazing at the image of themselves, and discover the god within.

“I realized God within me, not in a church,” reports one happy customer.

 

[b_justb]

नमस् (Namaste)

 

[roanoker]

What!! Mirror gazing to find God???

 

[NewUlm1976_2000]

What!! Mirror gazing to find God???

That is consistent with parts of Catholic Theology. The real Church is inside us day in and day out. Yes we go to a building either daily or weekly but I see it as the search for the Church within us to carry out our personal ministries.

 

[Lepanto]

Wow. What an example of narcissism!

We shouldn’t be too shocked, though. After all, this is merely the logical conclusion of the same distorted thinking that gave us churches-in-the-round and which evicted our tabernacles from the sanctuaries.

Perhaps what shocks me most is the ease with which many people overcome their discomfort and objections to such unorthodox and even heretical novelties.

ucanews.com/2008/08/20/mirror-room-helps-people-discover-divinity-within-themselves/

 

[Dauphin]

This is the summation of everything the post-conciliar orientation has tended towards - *Me *as God. The church is there for me; the truth comes from me; the highest dignity lies in me, so how can I have sin?

At the hear of the Spirit of Vatican II is one of the gravest heresies the Church has had to endure. This “mirror-cult” practice is one of the purest and most frightening expressions of modernism I’ve ever seen.

 

[pnewton]

It looks like it is in a bathroom or foyer as opposed to the tabernacle location. Maybe “God Within” means you are supposed to straighten your hair and check you make-up before going into the presence of God within the Church.

Yet “the Holy Spirit nun soon realized that facing oneself is tougher than encountering others.” Yeah. Just wait until you are before the white throne for judgment and see how much easier a mirror would be.

 

[notsmart]

This is simply called a meditation room, so it is not where the Mass is being said right? Whew.
But, still- I did not know Catholics could do meditiation like this.
I even read somewhere that certain types of meditation are wrong, like certain types of meditative prayer?
It is better to pray for the priest and nuns and people there if it is wrong, then to criticize them because that won’t help.
I have never been to India, and I am not aware of what things are allowed by the church in their worship. I know the catholic church allows for different cultures to have different allowances in their liturgy.
Again, the best thing to do here is offer up some of or all of our sufferings in prayer or at Mass and let it fall into the hands of God.

 

[japhy]

Yet another example of taking the sacred and replacing it with the secular, the profane, and the banal. Instead of the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings under the veil of bread, encased in a monstrance of gold placed upon a high altar of sacrifice, we have a mirror. Instead of the REAL PRESENCE, we have a flawed presence (since we are sinful and cannot represent Christ to ourselves as well as we can represent Christ to others).

The fact that the Sanskrit says “I am God” instead of “God within” is atrocious. The fact that only ONE PERSON is allowed in the room at a time is atrocious.

Being in the image of God does not make us God; we are a flawed presence of God because of sin. Whatever happened to “a mirror, darkly”? It is better to forget ourselves and look for God in others (cf. Matthew 25:31-46), so that they will see God in us. Don’t go looking for God in yourself, because that’s the road to complacency. “God is merciful, beautiful, kind and compassionate, and so am I, because God is within me” is a prime example of that problem!

 

[SisterSnowflake]

Sisters, and all other Catholics: ***Run(!) ***quickly away from this nonsense…you are NOT God, no matter how much the culture tries to convince you otherwise!

Father: bad theology, bad idea, bad practice! Find some other way to bring peace and healing…convincing people that they ARE God is not only entirely wrong, it will lead to more and worse troubles in the future.

 

[NewUlm1976_2000]

This is simply called a meditation room, so it is not where the Mass is being said right? Whew.
But, still- I did not know Catholics could do meditiation like this.
I even read somewhere that certain types of meditation are wrong, like certain types of meditative prayer?

Meditation is a form of personal prayer, they overlap and the terms can even be synonyms for each other. I see the point of the mirror, it goes by the teachings that we are all images of God, imperfect images but images nonetheless. This form is apparently a way to find God within us. It takes a more literal approach, it is unusual but fits as a form of personal prayer/retreat. I do not see anything to be worried about.

 

[Rolltide]

We shouldn’t be too shocked, though. After all, this is merely the logical conclusion of the same distorted thinking that gave us churches-in-the-round and which evicted our tabernacles from the sanctuaries.

You mean round like Santa Constanza of Rome (370 AD)?

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-santa-costanza-pictures/slides/f10 147.jpg

Or Santo Stefano Rotondo of Rome (470s AD)?

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-santo-stefano-rotondo-pictures/slides/eosa_002.jpg

Or San Teodoro of Rome (6th century AD)?

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Or San Giovanni in Oleo (1600s)?

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Then, of course, there’s the Pantheon in Rome (which was admittedly originally a pagan building, but turned into a church very early and was used for 1500 years…) I could go on…

Round churches are nothing new, and there is nothing theologically wrong with them, especially since MANY of them are located in Rome itself.

As far as evicting the tabernacles from the sanctuaries, this has always been common in Europe, where parades of marauding tourists, both Catholic and non-Catholic, filter through churches every day. In these buildings, the tabernacles were moved so that the faithful could pray uninterrupted, and so that people who didn’t know to bow and genuflect, or didn’t believe in the Real Presence, wouldn’t disrespect the Eucharist.

 

[MusicMan]

I didn’t see any evidence in that article that the tabernacle had been replaced. All I saw was that a nun, upon entering the room, had expected to see one, presumably based upon the title of the room being a “meditation room.”

Common sense would suggest that the church’s tabernacle is elsewhere in the building, perhaps even in the Sanctuary.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

FYI, the indwelling of God is very much Catholic teaching.

In fact, its the opposite of Eastern Religion, where they are taught to transcend to other levels of consciousness, outside of self.

The presence of God within, is very much, Catholic Doctrine.

Jim

 

[THurifer2]

Meditation is a form of personal prayer, they overlap and the terms can even be synonyms for each other. I see the point of the mirror, it goes by the teachings that we are all images of God, imperfect images but images nonetheless. This form is apparently a way to find God within us. It takes a more literal approach, it is unusual but fits as a form of personal prayer/retreat. ** I do not see anything to be worried about.**

Of course you dont.

As for he vast majority of the rest of us who call ourseleves Catholic…

 

[paladinan]

“Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Sphere knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly to assert with violence that a man has not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.”

-G.K. Chesterton (“Orthodoxy”, Ch.5)

 

[the_phoenix]

“Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Sphere knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly to assert with violence that a man has not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.”

-G.K. Chesterton (“Orthodoxy”, Ch.5)

Yay, team! :clapping:

~~ the phoenix

 

[JimR-OCDS]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

2781 When we pray to the Father, we are in communion with him and with his Son, Jesus Christ.33 Then we know and recognize him with an ever new sense of wonder. the first phrase of the Our Father is a blessing of adoration before it is a supplication. For it is the glory of God that we should recognize him as “Father,” the true God. We give him thanks for having revealed his name to us, for the gift of believing in it, and **for the indwelling of his Presence in us. **

From Sacred Scripture

If you love me and obey the commands I give you, I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete–to be with you always: the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept because it neither sees him nor recognizes him; but you can recognize him because he remains with you and will be within you. [John 14:15-17]

1Jo 4:4
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Jim

 

[the_phoenix]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

From Sacred Scripture

Jim

And in fact, from “The Life of St. Teresa of Avila”:

Once, when I was with the whole community reciting the Office,
my soul became suddenly recollected, and seemed to me all bright
as a mirror, clear behind, sideways, upwards, and downwards; and
in the centre of it I saw Christ our Lord, as I usually see Him.
It seemed to me that I saw Him distinctly in every part of my
soul, as in a mirror, and at the same time the mirror was all
sculptured–I cannot explain it–in our Lord Himself by a most
loving communication which I can never describe. I know that
this vision was a great blessing to me, and is still whenever I
remember it, particularly after Communion.

1. I understood by it, that, when a soul is in mortal sin, this
   mirror becomes clouded with a thick vapour, and utterly obscured,
   so that our Lord is neither visible nor present, though He is
   always present in the conservation of its being. In heretics,
   the mirror is, as it were, broken in pieces, and that is worse
   than being dimmed. There is a very great difference between
   seeing this and describing it, for it can hardly be explained.
   But it has done me great good; it has also made me very sorry on
   account of those times when I dimmed the lustre of my soul by my
   sins, so that I could not see our Lord.

1. This vision seems to me very profitable to recollected
   persons, to teach them to look upon our Lord as being in the
   innermost part of their soul. It is a method of looking upon Him
   which penetrates us more thoroughly, and is much more fruitful,
   than that of looking upon Him as external to us, as I have said
   elsewhere,

The troubling thing described in this particular news article is how the mirror here replaces the tabernacle, and also, the Sanskrit phrase above the mirror which says “I AM GOD.” Just as the tabernacle should not be replaced by a mirror, the merely human self should not replace … nor in any way be confused with being … God.

~~ the phoenix

 

[JimR-OCDS]

And in fact, from “The Life of St. Teresa of Avila”:

The troubling thing described in this particular news article is how the mirror here replaces the tabernacle, and also, the Sanskrit phrase above the mirror which says “I AM GOD.” Just as the tabernacle should not be replaced by a mirror, the merely human self should not replace … nor in any way be confused with being … God.

~~ the phoenix

Its not in a church or chapel, but a prayer room. The sign above the mirror says, “God Within.”

I think we have to take in consideration the culture from where this was done and also understand that tho look for God within, is very much in line with Catholic spirituality. Anyone who doubts it, has never read St. John of the Cross.

Jim